UCSF to Celebrate MLK Week with Series of Events

UCSF will celebrate the life and legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., with a series of events beginning this Friday, Jan. 15, when UC Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake, MD, delivers the keynote address.

Drake, an administrative leader who worked for five years at the UC Office of the President and as a physician-scientist for more than 20 years on the faculty at UCSF, will present “Access to Higher Education and Maintaining a Beloved Community,” from noon to 1 p.m. in Toland Hall. Light refreshments will be served.

Among his accomplishments, Drake launched the PRIME (Program In Medical Education) initiative to train physicians to meet the needs of the medically underserved and established new programs in public health, pharmaceutical sciences and nursing science.

Drake, who is a member of the UC Commission on the Future, serves as co-chair of the commission’s working group for access and affordability. That group is charged with looking into how UC can best meet the goals of providing an accessible and affordable education to a diverse student population during a time of diminishing resources.

Members of the UCSF community also are invited to attend the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Awards Ceremony on Friday, Jan. 22 at noon in Cole Hall. A member of the faculty, staff and student body will be recognized for their extraordinary leadership in promoting and advancing mutual respect, understanding and appreciation for all types of diversity at UCSF.

The 2010 Martin Luther King, Jr. awardees are:
• Andre Campbell, MD, professor, Department of Surgery at San Francisco General Hospital;
• Joseph Castro, PhD, vice provost of Student Academic Affairs and special assistant to the chancellor; and
• Alicia Gonzalez-Flores, a fourth-year medical student.

Andre Campbell

Andre Campbell, a 1985 graduate of the UCSF School of Medicine, has been a staunch advocate for social justice and equal opportunity for years. He joined the UCSF faculty in the Department of Surgery based at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) in 1993 and has risen the ranks serving as chief of staff at SFGH from 2005 to 2007.

As a surgeon at SFGH, Campbell has become a public advocate for violence prevention and education as he has witnessed and treated increasing numbers of African Americans who are victims of gang and gun warfare. He has testified before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco Health Commission, participated in roundtable discussion groups and has spoken to the media about the devastating escalation of violence in the community. Two years ago, he was asked by District Attorney Kamala Harris to participate in a series of community meetings in the Bayview Hunters Point, a hotbed of violent crime in San Francisco.

Campbell also is an outstanding role model for students, trainees and colleagues and is recognized as a thoughtful listener who respects the cultural and ethnic diversity of others. He was the featured speaker in February 2009 for the Black History Month Celebration at SFGH. For the past six years, Campbell has been involved in the UCSF Underrepresented Minority Mentoring Program and has served as a speaker and invited panelist at numerous programs and gatherings to recruit more minority students to UCSF.

Campbell co-directed the UCSF Post Baccalaureate Program for Underrepresented Minorities who are interested in a career in medicine for two years. Some of these students whom he mentored in this program have not only matriculated to UCSF, but have graduated from the School of Medicine. For his ongoing efforts, Campbell was the recipient of the Black Student Health Alliance Faculty Teaching Award in 1997 and in 1999 he was invited as the keynote speaker at the alliance’s graduation dinner.

As a patient advocate, Campbell has talked to cancer survivors and has worked with the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center’s faith-based outreach initiative educating the African American community about the growing problem of colon cancer. This initiative gives black clergy the tools and information they need to discuss the prevalence of cancer with their congregation.

Campbell is a national leader in advocating for ethnic diversity in medicine. He delivered the William E. Matory Distinguished Lecture awarded by the Surgery Section of the National Medical Association in 2002 and was the program director for the Critical Care Section of the National Medical Association for six years. Campbell is involved in mentorship activities at the national level as well having been actively engaged in the American College of Surgeons High School mentorship program for the past decade.

Joseph Castro

Since his arrival to UCSF in December 2006, Joseph Castro has led Student Academic Affairs and the campus at large in three priority areas outlined in the UCSF Strategic Plan: educating students, nurturing diversity and serving the community.

Among his accomplishments, Castro co-chaired the academic outreach task force, a subcommittee of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Academic Diversity (CACAD). The group conducted an inventory of campus academic outreach programs and issued a report with several recommendations, including the establishment of a UCSF outreach office to coordinate existing and initiate new programs. As a result of this collaborative project, campus diversity directors continue to meet and work together on outreach efforts, including hosting “Inside UCSF,” a program that brings disadvantaged undergraduate students with an interest in health careers to UCSF.

Castro is now co-leading another subcommittee of the CACAD that will review reports from students, faculty and staff over the years that call boosting efforts to advance diversity, including creating a center for diversity and outreach. The group will analyze other relevant data, such as best practices at other universities, to develop a single proposal with recommendations for the Chancellor in spring 2010.

Castro also works to improve the recruitment, advancement and retention of students at UCSF. He helps students to attend conferences and participate in outreach efforts at national meetings and works to increase student support – financially, socially and academically. Castro is a great role model and mentor who is readily available to students, speaking at numerous events about his own inspirational life story of being raised by a single mother in the Central Valley. The students respond to his message of hope and encouragement.

In addition, Castro strengthened the partnership between UCSF and San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), a critical part of UCSF’s community service. Working with faculty, staff and students throughout the campus, Castro formally launched a new partnership with SFUSD aimed a bringing UCSF’s expertise in science education, college readiness and clinical services to four needy schools in the southeast sector of San Francisco. By strengthening this partnership, UCSF will be building a pipeline to increase the diversity of the next generation of health care professionals and will expand access to care in underserved communities.

Castro is also an advocate for promoting racial and ethnic diversity outside UCSF. He speaks publicly at local and national events on the topic of supporting the educational mission and addressing the most pressing issues of our time. Castro was the keynote speaker at the 2008-2009 UC Berkeley Chancellor’s award ceremony celebrating and acknowledging the importance of scholarly work that honors racial and ethnic diversity. In September 2009, he presented at the Nationally Elected and Appointed Latino Officers conference in Washington, DC on strategies for increasing Latinos in higher education.

Castro is credited with promoting and advancing the hiring of underrepresented groups to Student Academic Affairs. Since his arrival at UCSF, he has hired eight persons of color and/or women to fill leadership positions in his cabinet made up of 15 direct reports.

Alicia Gonzalez-Flores

Fourth-year medical student and native of Mexico, Alicia Gonzalez-Flores is a student leader who has been actively involved in numerous activities that help promote and advance ethnic diversity at UCSF. As co-chair of the Latino Medical Student Association, she helps organize outreach events, community service projects and mentorship programs to promote the recruitment, retention and success of Latino medical students.

Starting in her second year, Gonzalez-Flores was selected to serve on the School of Medicine’s Admissions Committee and she has been a panelist for the annual admissions workshop. She also serves on the planning committee for Underrepresented in Medicine student/faculty dinners, which provide students with the opportunity to interact with minority faculty members. Gonzalez-Flores co-coordinated three student electives that focused on issues affecting Latino patients and minority students.

Gonzalez-Flores agreed to participate as the first person to be featured in UCSF’s Voices project, a series of videos that profile diverse members of the UCSF community. In her segment of Voices, which is posted on the diversity website,
Gonzalez-Flores reflects on her life as a medical student and the first person of her family to graduate from college.

Outside UCSF, Gonzalez-Flores is a volunteer with Clinica Martin-Baro, a student-run clinic in San Francisco’s Latino community. She also was a mentor with MedLink, an academic enrichment and mentorship program serving low-income high school students interested in careers in health care who are mostly of Latino descent or recent immigrants. For the past three years, Gonzalez-Flores has helped organize an annual health conference at her former high school in the Central Valley, where she lectured and organized workshops to encourage students to pursue careers in medicine.

Upon completion of the Pathway to Discovery in Global Health, a scholarly elective program at UCSF, Gonzalez-Flores will be working in a small community in Mexico evaluating interventions to decrease unnecessary antibiotic use.

Related Links:

UCSF Diversity website

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award recipients
UCSF Office of the Chancellor